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Celebrated Cheryl’s birthday in Trang with:

1. Breakfast of “real” coffee and ‘real” cake, cake and more cake….mmmmm…scrummy.

2. ‘Real’ bacon in a “real” baguette for lunch washed down with a couple of beers.

3. Dinner was an absolute ‘cheesefest’, small platter (actually a very large dinner plate full) of assorted cheeses including Danish Blue, Cheddar and Gouda. Bread was so, so “real’, German style brown bread and French bagette…..cor, it looked like a whole bakery but we did manage to scoff the lot……we even surprised ourselves. take a look at the picture. we forgot to take a ‘before’ pic but we did manage to leave a tiny peice of tomato and the olive stones. All washed down with imported Italian wine (not so “real” but a change from beer).

Wandered around Trang for a couple of days and then moved further south to Satun. We are now domiciled in Hotel Pinnacle (Fawlty Towers in disguise!). Rooms are OK, clean and spacious but like everything here it’s seen better days and badly needs some TLC.

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This is where we realised that apart from the numerous Mosques around, our hotel room contains an arrow to point you to Mecca. There has been trouble in the south over the years but, generally, everyone here seems to be getting on.

We met a young American lad at the night market who is teaching English here in Satun. He’s been here several months into a 1 year contract. He’s really enjoying it which is so refreshing when you see some of the “insular” Americans being interviewed on TV over the problems at Bangkok Airport. One guy was incensed because he wouldn’t get back for Thanksgiving, ” a really important American holiday” over” some cockermaimy protest”. What a pr**ck!!!

Ice Station Pasty. Looking for lunch we saw the nice lady deep frying what looked like pasties. We asked what they were but couldn’t really understand so we decided to take a risk and give it a go, “Carpe Diem”!! And what a result, curried pasties containing potato and other veg….quality!! Such good quality that we had three each washed down with a compulsory beer.

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Half way through our pasty lunch a lady arrived on her mobile food stall to buy ice by the kilo…..neat.

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Went for breakfast this morning at The Towers. “No toast, have orange juice”. “What”, I said, “no toast”?, “This is a hotel”!! “No toast, no toast, have orange juice”.

It took me 10 minutes to nip out and buy my own bread and make my own toast….but it did make us laugh!! Just as we finished breakfast guess what? A dozen loaves of bread arrived!

Going to mill around today, maybe more pasty and beer, and tomorrow we’re going “off piste” again to the east coast where we’ve never been before and we should see something of a monsoon climate.

Paul, we are leaving our cases at “The Towers” so I hope your prediction does not come true!